35 years!

35 years... that's roughly 12,775 days or 306,000 hours and that's how many years my dad has been working with his company. Pretty remarkable when you consider that 45% of Canadians will have 3-5 different careers in their lifetimes. I know that I fit into that category already, having made several career transitions. I think my dad's generation is more linear in their work lives (school, work, play) whereas my generation tends to be more cyclical in the way we do things. School, play (that first trip everyone takes after university) , work, play some more (sabatical anyone?), maybe go back to school (there's that career change), work and then play again when we retire.

Save-On-Foods, or Overwaitea as it is also known (http://www.overwaitea.com/aboutus/history.htm for the full story on the name), has been a part of my life pretty much since the day I was born. I can remember being one of the most popular kids when my pre-school class visited the bakery and my dad pulled out a tray of monster-sized chocolate chip cookies. Summer holidays meant waving to Overwaitea truckers and occasionally talking to them on the CB radio and of course dad's transfer is what moved us to the prairies of Alberta when the company expanded.

It was pretty cool to see the effort that Save-On put into recognizing their employees and it's obvious that their employees value it as well with several people receiving 15, 20 and 25 year awards. Naturally job satisfaction factors in there somewhere as well. My dad was one of four to get a 35 year service award and there were three employees who were recognized for 40 years of service. Congrats to everyone - and Dad, we're so proud of you!